Just now, even Saudi's gave him the "No" card!
According to Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington DC:
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz urged Vice President Dick Cheney to give diplomacy more time before pushing for Iran’s referral to the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear program, the Arab News reported today. Egypt also urged Cheney to give negotiations with Iran more time.
Is it not historically urging to remind these Chicken Hawks [credit for this incredible term goes to Jolly Roger of Reconstitution] that regardless of all the subliminal rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two nations have not been really hostile in action against each other in the past 13 hundred years?!
What makes Americans to believe that they can stand two Islamic theocracies against each other, other than their utmost disillusionment and ignorance about the reality of the Middle East?
Saddam, the only Arab leader to engage two Islamic neighbors during his tenure, who was both erected AND toppled by Americans was a "secular" leader. Iraq, when launched military attack against Iran, was not an Islamic state; and it went to fight Iran's Islamism.
By contrast, Iran and Saudi Arabia are constitutionally ISLAMIC. Given the mess in Iraq, given America's unfair bias in supporting Israel's brutality in Gaza, the politicians of Islamic countries CANNOT and WILL NOT side with America, regardless of the size of the carrot or stick!
One needs to realize that the Sunni-Shiite infighting in Iraq is not about religion, rather about settling scores on a nationalist agenda. The infighting is not between Shiites and Sunnis, but between groups who happen to belong to a Shiite majority and a Sunni minority and who hold the other accountable for (national and not religious) betrayal and other's oppression.
Shiites and Sunnis are NOT enemies; as much as the MSM makes the delusional North Americans believe they are! (nothing amuses me more than listening to people--anti-warriors, of course--who think themselves knowledgeable about the reality of Sunni/Shiite animosity!)
That the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iran have not fallen into political instability by the Shiite-Sunni infightings is increasingly worrisome to Israel; the last thing they want is Iran and Arabs united! However, Israelis have not been able to outsmart Arabs and Iranians this time; and their provocative recent actions have not produced the kind of massive Arab reaction they wished/planned for. Israel's increasingly isolated, while Iran's been making concessions to its Arab neighbors.
The recent election results in Iran weakens America/Israel's position even further. It is not that the election was fair and that the conservatives won fair and square. It is that in spite of all the electoral irregularities, there is no massive revolution happening in Iran contesting the conservative status quo! People just have more important issues than toppling a government in Iran!
The hurried travels of McCain, Lieberman and Cheney to the Middle East reflects Neoconservatives and Zionists shared anxiety about loosing power in the Middle East and losing momentum against Iran! Iraq's oil will not remain in their hands for too long! And there is a limit to the indignity of the UAE's prostitution. With US economy failing, the regional whores will be looking to younger richer customers!
Neoconservative might hope to rally Arab nationalists (residuals of Nasserite and Saddamist school of thought) against Iran's "hegemonic" aspirations; but they will NOT succeed in holding Shiites and Sunnis against each other.
Even, flaming nationalist ashes will not be an easy deed, because Iran has NOT BEEN AGGRESSIVE to any Arab country, nor to Jewish state, nor to Turkey, nor to Pakistan or Afghanistan!
The last fight Iran started (and lost, as they tried to take some of the territory lost in an earlier war) was against Russia, in the 18th century, a past long forgotten, a land never reclaimed, a land long forgotten too, and now turned into independent states!
Truth is, Iran is secure enough to not go to war to settle it's territorial disputes in the north, west and the Persian gulf region. The wealth in Iran is no longer only oil-based. In the heart of the Persian plateau, earth is generous with minerals. And the increasingly educated and industrialized youth of Iran are becoming increasingly inventive and entrepreneurial. Iran exports culture, flowers, food, and soon enough water and wind energy!
To consider Iran's economic weight, makes one realize the fear the "real hegemons" feel about Iran's ENTIRE independence from oil revenue. The urge to stop Iran's nuclear activities is not because of fear of its military strike against Israel. But about inability of the old powers in holding Iran by the traditional oil leash. An India or China in the heart of the Middle East? That will set a dangerous inspirational example, would it not?
Alienating Iran is no longer a viable political or economic reality! Iran's not been coercing its neighbors by military threats, she's been cooing them by economic and cultural consensus. To make an enemy of Iran serves no geopolitical purpose. Iraq's history has proven that; and I would be surprised if there are dumb enough politicians in the world (minus Bush, Sarkozy, McCain, Clinton and Bin Laden) who want to risk the foreseeable outcome of engaging Iran in any hostile way.
How deep has Cheney dug America's grave! I hope the American people will hold him accountable, not for the havoc he wreaked in Iraq, but for the demise he brought to America!
25 comments:
Hey Naj, this was an outstanding post.
Thanks.
Will Cheney ever be held accountable?
I don't think so. He's moved his company to Dubai. I hear the skiing is good there, the water doesn't kill the troops, adn his contracts in Iran are still intact.
Lizards do well in the desert, don't they?
Cheney will no more be held accountable than Bush will be. This is not about Religion between Shiite and Sunni. Because of Bush it will be Sunni against Shiite throughout the middle east unless they casn be separated to go after Bush and Israel.
Did you watch McCain during this trip trying to sound Presidential while Hillary and Obama were fighting like little kids? he is as brain dead and clueless as Bush. Lieberman had to help him out when McCain said Iran is training Al Qaeda. Duh!
I enjoyed reading this post naj, thanks. Great points about Sunni/Shia discord, Iranian regional conduct, and Israeli insecurity.
barmakid
Jim,I really think you didn't read my post thoroughly! ;)
Hey imagine Lieberman running for vice, as Nunya put it, it will be another Laurel and Hardy fiasco like the one in the past 7 years!
I really feel for McCain. He is OLD. With age, especially in people who have suffered war, who are under chemotherapy, comes a slight loss of the frontal lobes of the brain. That makes them act a little demented and a little less inhibited and more schizophrenic! ;)
Nunya, yup! He's been wallowing there for a while!
Barmakid, thanks! I got my inspiration from your post Neoconservative's attempt at "making a reality"
Yes, a great New Year special. They did move to try and use a divide and rule strategy and incite sectarian wars. But as you say a tough sell given reality and also the example Iraq gives. What you argue is reason -against an increasingly belligerent and deluded grouping who use violence to shape the world to their delusional pattern. Both Americans and Israelis need to identify and deal with these dangerous criminals, but...Sadly if I had to predict then I don't see Cheney or anyone ever being prosecuted.
Did you see this at Juan Cole's by William R. Polk? Some interesting musisngs.
I also wouldn't discount them launching a week of raids in the final period in office, to satisfy their desires and to leave the new administration a shitpile of trouble. I do think the only gurantee of no attacks happening is for them to be impeached, which isn't going to happen.
So yes all sense and reason support diplomacy and respect for Iranian sovereignty to do what they want with their program. And military intervention would be disastrous for all parties (but mostly for the US, but that assumes Cheney cares more about his country than his fortunes and his beliefs), then I look at the cretins in the Whitehouse and realise it's going to be a long year.
Rick, Valid concern shared by many.
However, I maintain that irrespective of all the war-profiteering schemes laid out by Cheney's camp, they just cannot pull it off: Why?
1) their military is disobedient! Fallon's resignation is just the simple proof of that.
2) their media is flirting with the upcoming administration and quite aware of the unpopularity of war-mongering propaganda at this point.
3) their puppet governments in the region are not yielding!
Do you expect Cheney to fly the B52 over Iran's nuclear site?
Do you think Israelis will risk it without US consent?
Have you wondered where condy is and WHY Cheney's been in the Middle East spotlight?
I suspect, even if they try to provoke Iranians, they WILL sit it out and wait for the next administration.
I just pray the next president will not be Clinton! That will be the recipe for DISASTER!
Naj,
Excellent post. I agree with you but do not forget that there is another reason why Saudi Arabia will not be the US's ally in going to war against Iran: Saudi Arabia's own internal stability. I see Saudi kings walking the fine line in order to preserve their rule despite economic hardship and much discontent. I think also that Saudis learned the lesson from Iraq. The new US wars are meant just to become a mess.
However, I am afraid Saudis might concede a price, in exchange for not approving a war on Iran, for Cheney and cie, Lebanon's stability. And I am really afraid of a war by proxy with Hezbollah. Don't underestimate the neocon's natural urge for war.
I read today that Cheney visits Israel in order to revive the peace process (reuters). I really laughed, what person, sane in her own mind, can think that this guy pursues peace ?
Rick,
Yes I believe Clinton will be worse than McCain! McCain's inheriting a worn out hors! Clinton'll have the fuel of disillusioned democrats and their large Israeli lobby wing!
Sophia,
I am not quite sure I understand I am afraid Saudis might concede a price, in exchange for not approving a war on Iran, for Cheney and cie, Lebanon's stability. And I am really afraid of a war by proxy with Hezbollah.
But I also think Lebanon and Hezbollah are at risk of being exchanged at the bargain table. Who will pull the plug on them first remains to be seen.
This is high time for ordinary populace to act with political savvy. If everyone in that region, including Israelis consider Cheney as the common enemy, I think a lot of progress will be made.
Interesting post.
I think the neocons started getting nervous when the Saudi King invited Nejad to Hajj. That was quite the political statement.
The problem with Saudi, is that it has some truly low characters in high places, like Bandar bin Sultan, who recently threatened the UK with terrorism (by way of withholding Saudi intelligence from the British) if the British did not halt a corruption investigation into a British-Saudi arms deal in which Bandar pocketed $1 billion. According to an article by Hersh, Bandar was also the guy who worked with the Americans to shuttle al Qaida wahhabists into Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to instigate a campaign of terror like Iraq against Hezbollah. After Hezbollah b*tch slapped the Israelis back to their side of the border, it seemed the most feasible way to take them down. (Lebanese intellgience uncovered a plot to have Nasrallah assassinated, and Nasrallah promptly "forgave" the would be assassins, unfortunately)
Point is, it could switch for the worst at any time, depending on who's in power, but as far as the masses are concerned, the damaging sectarian war in the Arab world flamed by the Wahhabists has been countered to a certain degree by the massive non-sectarian reproach in Hezbollah's support of Palestinians. This, I understand was a concious decision taken by Iran and Hezbollah - that it is better to have friends than enemies in the region.
Maybe there will be some secret deal between Israel/US and Iran to disown Hezbollah and let it get eaten up by Israel and the US in return for less pressure on Iran...I don't know, it depends what kind of man Khamanei is. Is he genuine in his support of Hezbollah or just using them? I don't know, but I think he would be short sighted to do deals with the devil. They'll only come back to eat him up later.
Happy Nourooz, may it be a prosperous year for you and your country.
A.N. Iraqi,
Yes that Prince Bandar is quite a character. I have made a post this creature last year.
Will Iran sacrifice Hezbollah?
I have a faint instinct that No! Iranian's link to Hezbollah are not post-revolutionary! Those who became Iranian revolutionary guards did receive a lot of their training in Lebanon. There is a strong sense that the people who are used in oppressing Iranians on the streets are brought from Lebanon. Hezbollah is the devout brother that will bail the IRI out should it get in trouble with the Iranian people.
Hezbollah is an unpopular concept in Iran; but it will not go away as long as mullahs and zealots like Ahmadinejad are in office.
Will the reformists sacrifice them? I doubt it. If they were to sacrifice anyone they would have sacrificed the Iranian zealots first.
Hezbollah, for those Iranian who join it, is not just a geopolitical entity, it is an ideological one. It cannot be betrayed by politics, I am afraid.
[[the two nations have not been really hostile in action against each other in the past 13 hundred years?!]]
what nations u mean?, KSA been established since 1927 only, and till now it does not represent unified people
[[What makes Americans to believe that they can stand two Islamic theocracies against each other]]
being both theocrats of different sects & petro-regimes makes them natural rivalries, (i thought it is already clear now, or why the hell Iraq is unstable???)
i will not comment on remaining of your essay, all the rest based on the above mentioned argument...
Aardvark, Iraq is not instable over religion.
And, regardless of the tribal nature of Arab countries, Persians have not been fighting them in the past 1300 years; except in defending themselves against the SECULAR Ba'th party of Iraq.
You are too indoctrinated by Americans to realize this ;)
Naj, Have you seen Yoshie's post US Declares War on Iran? On banking sanctions being imposed.
Rick:
Swiss brush aside criticism over gas contract with Iran
By: Carl Mortished (Times Online, March 24, 2008)
A multibillion-euro Swiss contract to buy natural gas from Iran has provoked threats from Washington, protests from Jewish groups and fuelled mounting concern about Europe's energy security.
The deal between the Zurich utility Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft Laufenburg (EGL) and National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) would bring gas from Iran to Europe as early as next year, the Swiss company said.
The contract, worth between €10 billion (£7.8 billion) and €20 billion, was signed last week in Tehran in the presence of Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Swiss Foreign Minister, and President Ahmadinejad.
However, the deal to supply 5.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year for up to 25 years was condemned by the US State Department, which said that it would investigate the deal's compliance with the Iran Sanctions Act.
...
Cheney visited Israel to get them to do the dirty work of attacking, which would allow Bush to come to the rescue of Israel once Iran fights back, thus igniting Bush's dream of World War III.
I personally have no compassion for McCain.
McCain is deranged and he is intent on finishing Bush's quest for world dominance through war.
McCain has made millions from those supposed war injuries, so any sympathy in that regard has been well repaid with U.S and Iraqi blood, and millions of dollars McCain has made from this war.
Larry
I have to laugh, you know I say and feel the same way so I don't have to say anything!
Larry, Jim,
I have to admit I do share your concern as well.
These people are just WAAAAAYYY too crazy and I am not sure if they will be handing anything clean off to Obama!
Yes they are after total war, but how badly should they be defeated to stop?
I mean WHO is going to fight for them? Will you guys?!
naj
I would fight in a heart beat if America was in danger or to be beside my sons. Sadly the one headed back there now is brainwashed and wants to do it. I think he's soft but he's a man I can only advise and hope he survives.
Jim,
Who do you think poses a greater threat to America now, Cheney or any imagined or manipulated enemy trained in Cheney's Al-Quaeda camp?
I wish your sons were allowed to get rid of Bin Laden; but it seems Cheney had a different mission for him!
naj
It was Bush and Cheney now it is the so called terrorists and much of the rest of the world. Here is a part of what I wrote yesterday and just sent to a friend in Australia!
I have written about it 500 times and a search on my site would prove it. This only a small part of what is soon to come as Bush's house of cards crumbles. I wrote about it yesterday and will update it today. The idiot is still touting his success. That ought to prove he is on a different agenda than the rest of the world.
Anyway my son flying support has about a month left there. My EOD son is retraining right now to head into that area! Anyway you have the Sunni issue but you have also conflicting factions of Shiite one pro American one pro Iranian that is the biggest problem as any idiot should have known in the first place. I told you, total middle east collapse then the world compliments of Bush. Here is part of what I wrote yesterday!
It was only a matter of time before the future of Iraq, the middle east, and Americans was stolen by Republicans I began to expect by having the election stolen once again in a growing number of ways for McCain so the right wing war mongering new order agenda could continue. I now believe that After giving $20 billion to the Saudi's much of which will be funneled to Al Qaeda and thousands of weapons we supplied now stolen and supplying both sides with the credit of the recent increase in attacks and violence going to Iran for supplying to the Shiite, more specifically Al Sadr, weapons and training. I decided to look into the origin of Al Sadr's Mahdi Army and discuss today's most recent events in this Iraqi middle east Sunni against Shiite Breakdown! Bush's inevitable attack on Iran is getting closer!
First I have to admit that I for one was very surprised to find that the Shiite Mahdi Army was a creation of Bush's as is the Sunni Iraq Al Qaeda. To supporters, the militia is the military muscle of Iraq's urban Shia Muslims, fighting to protect Najaf and other Shia parts of the country. Its membership rose from just a few thousand after the US-led invasion to some 60,000, according to a December 2006 report by the Iraqi Survey Group. It was created in the summer of 2003, prompted by radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr, who preached in his sermons the need for a new force.
Young men were recruited at offices near mosques to defend the Shia Muslim faith and their country in defiance of the US-led coalition's arms controls. In August 2007, Moqtada Sadr announced the militia had declared a ceasefire, under which it pledged not to attack rival armed groups or American forces in Iraq. The cleric extended the truce in February 2008 but it came under strain amid claims US and Iraqi forces were detaining militia members. US and Iraqi forces said they were only targeting renegade Mehdi Army factions they accused of flouting the ceasefire.
Taking its name from the Mehdi - a messianic figure in the Shia tradition - the Mehdi Army is fiercely loyal to its religious founder. Since Iraq's elections and the creation of its own, Shia-dominated government, Moqtada Sadr's movement has continued to take on new members. The US accuses Iran, Shia Iraqis' spiritual ally, of training, supplying and financing Mehdi Army fighters. Iraq's Mehdi Army
This is unbelievably complicated!The Maliki government appears to be moving against Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Basra, Baghdad and perhaps elsewhere. Heavy fighting is reported by the New York Times, which also reports: The operation, which senior Iraqi officials had been signaling for weeks, is considered so important by the Iraqi government that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who went to Basra on Monday, intended to personally direct the fighting, several Iraqi officials said. Which I'm sure will come as a great comfort to the U.S. military and all Iraqis.
And now, the question: How will the U.S. media portray this? As the Iraqi Army cleaning up a renegade militia in Basra? Probably. But the Iraqi Army in Basra is mostly composed of another renegade militia--the Badr Corps, an organization founded by Iran and answerable to ISCI--the Shi'ite faction led by the Hakim family, Sadr's great rival. There are no heroes here. The Sadr movement is populist, nationalist, anti-Iranian, in favor of a strong central government...but it's also anti-American and oriented toward a stricter Islamic state than the current Maliki government is. The Hakim family's movement is both pro-American and pro-Iranian. It is federalist, rather than nationalist, in favor of a weak central government with a strong Shi'istan in the south (which would be heavily influenced by Iran).
My intelligence sources have told me in the past that we don't know nearly enough about the southern Shi'ite factions--we've been fighting and wooing Sunnis in the north for the past five years--and that U.S. involvement in the Basra fight would be a disastrous idea. Let's hope that General Petraeus makes the right decision, stays out of it in Basra and keeps a low U.S. profile in the Shi'ite neighborhoods--almost exclusively Sadr-controlled--in Baghdad. Today in Iraq
You know as well as I do that Bush and Petraeus are going to do the wrong thing and this will get much worse as Iraq's breakdown goes full swing. At that point Bush will attack Iran getting his original goal of a total middle east breakdown going full swing so he can emplace his new middle east order or so he thinks. that will leave Iraq to its demise. It will breakdown to a total civil war as originally expected before the chief idiot ignored that fact. It will be Sunni against Shiite throughout the entire middles east with Israel and us in the middle until Russia, China, and the rest of the world get involved and this dissolves into Bush's new world order WW3 which will be Bush's Forever War!
One last note! My youngest who has not talked to me in years is in the process of becoming a Combat Engineer so ha can go over there and get maimed or killed. They're men I can only advise and hope. Take care and stay in touch! Jim
Jim, I will have to read your post more thoroughly. But one note: I don't think Sadr's loyalties are with Iran. Although many of Iranian clerics are Iraq-educated, the schools of Najaf and Qom are rather independent entities. Sadr, in fact, seems to be more on the American payroll!
You bring a good point about the within-sect infightings; which brings the argument closer to what I suggested: this fight is about power, not faith. But that is of course obvious. Even within Iran different shiite clerics are fighting each other, and the fight is not over centuries-old issues, rather very contemporary greeds and megalomanias.
naj
Sadr's loyalty is with Iraq. The other faction's is with Iran or so we are led to believe. Then there's the Sunni Al Qaeda. There are no surprises here.
Bush the idiot just chose to ignore the obvious.I'm listening to it right now and it will get a lot hairier!
Man, Naj, I'm reading these comments and I'm blown away at how people really believe that the US is going to attack Iran.
No Way. It's not going to happen.
If anybody should understand overblown blustery rhetoric it's people who come from the middle east, yeesh.
Cheney's just blowing hot air. The military is overstretched as it is.
Nunya,
I am sure everyone knows military's over stretched, but that doesn't seem to bother the Air-headed Cheney.
He is trying to make alliances and have others do his dirty job. But I think EVEN Israelis are smarter than that!
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